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IRL, the Dex 18 guy in heavy armor, of course.

Beowulf swam across the North Sea in full mail, which he explicitly credits with preserving his life from the bites of a hundred poisonous sea serpents dogging him most of the way. At that moment in history, mail (chainmail) was the best armor even a king could buy. There is no reason to...

I completely disagree. The Paladin is clearly inspired by Arthurian and other similar traditions. It is no more obscure than the Ranger or Necromancer or Seer, and some other concepts that have been rehashed a thousand ways. I believe the reason people do not "get" the Paladin is they are not...

In context, I find it perfectly realistic that some styles of fighting inevitably induce fatigue in the opponent. If that is the last 3 HP of the big monster, well, that monster looked like he was going to dodge clear, but he was so exhausted he mis-stepped and the axe landed. Or the axe...

1e gives XP for magical treasure, only it is less than the value of the item in gold. The XP value is listed on the treasure charts. The treasure types in the MM were too random, too. Isn't getting lucky and having lots of gold its own reward? Looking back at it, I can see how it could work...

My fuzzy recollection is that the 1e rules for Charge were sufficiently restrictive that it was, for all practical purposes, a "per encounter" ability of all martial classes (albeit one that most combatants did not live long enough to attempt to use for lack of a legal target). Per Encounter...

That is what Damage Resistance and Regeneration is good for, as a coarse means to qualitatively separate the men from the boys. I think armies usefully assisting the real heroes fight the Tarrasque is a great thing, and it would be very sad such were outright impossible. I always imagined that...

XP for gold as the primary experience driver works pretty well for certain styles of play, such as dungeon crawls. It is terrible for other common styles of play. It would be, using today's terms, rather "videogamey". That said, I think XP for largesse is a more promising idea because it...

Unless you have concrete suggestions for interesting tactics supported by easily understood mechanics, you can have all the fluff you want and a white dragon is still a red dragon with a different coat of paint, a kobold is a weak human in a lizard suit, and a gnoll is a big human in a dog suit...

Yes. I love 3e, but I think that the 4e Monster Manual is probably the best example of such a book ever written.

FWIW, insofar as it is practical, I do not want any particular kinds party composition to be unambiguously vastly better for most kinds of adventuring. Therefore keeping the advantage of a cleric smallish is a very good thing. 5r strongly devalues healing spells outside of combat, while...

Fair enough. But what you are indulging in is called "metagame reasoning". It is arbitrary. Let's not pretend your arbitrary reasoning is any less arbitrary than my arbitrary reasoning. Once we get past that, we can meaningfully discuss the pros and cons of different possible approaches...

It is all "metagame reasoning". It is all arbitrary. Decide what will be fun for you based on how it will play at your table. IMO, those who like the tactical resource management grinds (count me in!) will probably find it more interesting if only 25% of your resources refresh after every...

(Kudos to Firelance for putting his finger on this argument...I am stealing it an rifting off it in my own way.) We should recognize that the pace of natural healing and spell recovery is arbitrary in a game like D&D. To put it baldly, there is no reason spells should recover more easily than...

As a practical matter, if you have "enough" clerics in the party, you got a refresh that is 80% as good as this every 24 hours anyway, without even touching the wands and scrolls. At some point the wizard calls it a day because he spell selection is now screwed, and the cleric has useless...

Before D&D there was: * Arthurian tales * Robin Hood * Greek myths * Tolkien * Beowulf and Norse myths * fairy tales (Grimm, etc.) Everything else would be rated obscure, regardless of whether Gygax read them. His audience would simply not have understood. I would further add: *...

Yup. Those who are concerned about a possible loss of a proper SoD roll are ignoring the fact that if I make my save I get to walk up to her and attempt to plant my dagger exactly between her eyes. The D&D Medusa in play in every edition has never closely resembled the Medusa of myth, because...

The point of including them in Shadowrun is that there was an implied pre-history that could be imagined as resembling D&D. That was a setting decision to attract people who had already played D&D and might want to experiment with something with more edgy and (perhaps) adult content. And it...

The idea of unique items "because it adds flavor" seems very popular. Why isn't this same kind of thinking equally popular for classes? Some people like LG-only Paladins "because it adds flavor" and other reasons, while others swear such non-broad thinking is silly. Isn't this really two...

3e operated from the premise that the player should be the one to decide how his character would mechanically progress. 3e may have offered too much of a good thing here, but it does not automatically make for less or more roleplaying. It could cut either way.